While zombies make great additions to anyone's Hallowe'en celebration, now that its over, you might find yourself with a surplus of these unwanted reanimated corpses. You might, therefore, be asking yourself, is it legal to kill a zombie in Canada?

The short answer is "maybe."

In the Criminal Code of Canada, s. 222(1), "A person commits homicide when, directly or indirectly, by any means, he causes the death of a human being." The statute goes on define culpable homicide, which is punishable, as being murder, infanticide, and manslaughter. A zombie is already dead so you cannot cause the death of a zombie and it is certainly arguable that a zombie is no longer a human being. As a result, there is no homicide. Of course, you might be liable if you caused the person to be transmogrified into a zombie in the first place.

On the other hand, a zombie is clearly a corpse (a dead human being). Section 182 of the Criminal Code prohibits the improper or indecent interference with or the offering of any indignity to a dead human body or human remains, whether buried or not. If found guilty, such a person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. A Crown Attorney could argue that bashing a zombie constitutes such an offence, unless the defendant can show that such action was an act of self-defence.

We would recommend that, in killing a zombie, you act only in self-defence and use only enough force to defend yourself and no more. (see CCC, s. 34)